Fighters Ducking Fighters??

[The Troll]

he was stripped of the title for avoiding a fight with lennox lewis. alright, but did he drop a title, too? did he retire in the wake of an ass-whooping, like lewis did?

Maybe that is true. But back in 1996 Lennox Lewis was not as highly regarded by the general boxing public as Evander Holyfield. And people had been wanting to see Tyson fight Holyfield since like 1991. It was the biggest fight out there and that is why Tyson chose to fight Holyfield over Lewis. Lewis was recently coming off the loss to the McCall also.

That would have been interesting fight though 1996 Tyson vs 1996 Lewis. But Lewis was not very popular in 1996.

[TheEvilSaint]

Maybe that is true. But back in 1996 Lennox Lewis was not as highly regarded by the general boxing public as Evander Holyfield. And people had been wanting to see Tyson fight Holyfield since like 1991. It the biggest fight out there and that is why Tyson chose to fight Holyfield over Lewis. Lewis was recently coming off the loss to the McCall also.

That would have been interesting fight though 1996 Tyson vs 1996 Lewis. But Lewis was not very popular in 1996.

i see where u r going with this. but mike tyson had justification in being stripped of his title. he was stripped so he could go for a big-time fight. lewis wasnt stripped because of the prospect of another fight, he was stripped because he didnt want to take a risk and fight a mandatory.

[JUYJUY]

As far as ducking fighters goes Roy Jones Jr is the king in that category. I get tired of being a Roy Jones Jr hater I dont really like to do it. I dont really hate Jones, but he did duck pretty much all the best fighters in the all the weight classes he was in with the exception of middleweight.

Is this some kind of joke?

Gerald McClellan was the number one Middleweight, Roy Jones was number two. John David Jackson and Steve Collins were the other World Champions at Middleweight (apart from McClellan and Jones) and they were rated much better than Hopkins. Hopkins was never a top five Middleweight until a few years after the Jones Jr fight.

So Jones Jr didn't fight the best back then either.

[solo1bc]

no, ruiz is not the man to beat, nor is byrd. but they were mandatories and they were contenders, and if lewis was as good as u say he was, he could have knocked them into next year, proved he was the best, and KEEP HIS TITLES.

Lewis was 36 years old at the time and a multi, multi millionaire!

What would you suggest, that people just keep fighting until the get beat by someone younger, more able to recover and hungrier for success. Why?

IF Lewis had defended against Ruiz/Bryd there would have been another bunch of 'contenders' after them... Should he have fought them too or would the 3 times undisputed heavyweight shampeen of the world still be fraud if he didn't?

Crazy talk!

he was stripped of the title for avoiding a fight with lennox lewis. alright, but did he drop a title, too? did he retire in the wake of an ass-whooping, like lewis did?

I don't remember Lewis getting stopped for having a bad cut! How do you define an 'ass whooping' mate?! Klitchko might have been giving Lewis trouble and winning on the cards but it wasn't an unfair stoppage as he made out at the time (jumping around the ring and playing to the crowd like a monkey!). It was a bad cut and if you cut a guy bad enough that's a good way to beat him no?!

and REAL heavyweight champions dont run away.

So what do they do then? As per my previous post... Holyfield didn't retire and got ****ed up, Frazier didn't retire and got a ****ed up and Ali....

Anyway, I'm fighting a losing battle here I'm sure... Lennox will NEVER get the respect he deserves in America (am generalising as I'm aware there are plenty of Americans on here who will say otherwise)..

[.::|ULTIMATE|::.]

Hamed pretty much openly ducked JMM. There was much more talk about JMM facing hamed before there was even talk of mab or Morales facing him.